The Top Regular Savers Discussion Thread

ColdIron

moi said:

I also screenshotted it below. I bookmarked my reply as a reminder, but I don't know how to link directly to masonic's helpful post from the "show previous quotes" bit.😳

In a browser - if you hover over the Date and Time below the poster's name e.g. 26 January at 8:55PM, you can right click then copy a link to the post to your clipboard

allegro120

Bridlington1 said:

allegro120 said:

s71hj said:

Quick question, which I hope will be accepted as being relevant to this thread. It's about feeder accounts for regular savers, and I'm wondering how people manage that side of the whole undertaking. I have about 10000 go out to regular savers at the start of the month, 1st unless a weekend and maybe 4000 spread throughout the rest of a month. This is all by standing order from Santander current account. I'm conscious that the money, therefore, sits in that for a fair proportion of the month awaiting the start of the month earning 2.5%, generally growing to the required amount by maturing savings accounts of various kinds and salary. I'm beginning to wonder if all the advantage I gain from the regular saver boosted rates is lost by the amount of time money sits there waiting for the 1st. However, I don't have the bandwidth in my life for constantly daily monitoring and manual transfers. I think ideally, I need some sort of robo thing to move money from a higher paying saving account to current account as and when I need!!!!. Any ideas or tips about how others coordinate their affairs cost/time effectively on this front much appreciated!

With the exception of Zopa, FD, HSBC, Coventry LSS and Santander I fund my regular savers on the 1st of the month and when if comes to 1st falling on weekend I fund some of them on the next working day.  I use spreadsheet.  All RS's in alphabetical order, with all basic info (account or ref number, %, allowance), those that don't credit at weekends are colour-coded and columns for recording what I deposited and confirmation of arrival.  I also have a column telling me what feeder accounts have payee set up for each RS.  This makes my RS distribution easy to manage.        

I'm in a similar position though when I opened my Coventry LSS I didn't fund it initially so ``refreshed" the account on New Year's Day so that the account month became identical to a calendar month. Zopa isn't too bad in my case as I opened it on 2nd of the month so is only one day out, Santander is too low for me to fund at present but again my most recent one got opened on 1st so that its funding would marry up with calendar months.

Like yourself I use a spreadsheet, though I set mine up a tad differently to yours, my regular savers get sorted by interest rate (highest to lowest), a column which states when I can fund the regular saver (1st for first day of the month regardless of which day of the week it is, 1st WD for first working day, etc).

Colour coding gets reserved for which accounts have/haven't been funded, so green for has been fully funded, orange for keeping but not funding fully, red for closing/maturing this month, white for shall fund but haven't done so yet.

I do remember you were refreshing Coventry, I thought it was a good idea but I didn't want to risk. My Zopa is ok too, 3rd of the month. I treat Santander as a mini EA, I transfer monthly interest from my two Edges there and recently started topping it up to £200p/m, it's the only 5% RS I'm currently funding.

Your spreadsheet sounds very similar to mine.  For "have/haven't been funded" I use 3 thin columns "allowance/deposit/confirmation of arrival" - good for tracking partial deposits.  Also have a column showing min-max for the accounts I may have to vary my monthly deposits, that helps to avoid checking with a very lengthy accounts spreadsheet. I keep all RSs with alternative deposit days at the bottom of the list and diarise deposits to these RSs.  My RS distribution spreadsheet also includes a section for current accounts that needs feeding (Club Lloyds, RBS/Natwest, Halifax etc.) and debit card payments for rewards, this helps with managing the process.

clairec666

I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps a spreadsheet of regular savers! I'm a bit of an Excel geek, so I loved making mine. I've got a nice little colour scale thing to highlight the best interest rates so I can fund those first, and different colours for the ones with standing orders, then each month I make manual deposits after pay day (my pay varies a lot so some months I can pump a lot more into my regular savers) and un-highlight the ones I've paid.

s71hj

clairec666 said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps a spreadsheet of regular savers! I'm a bit of an Excel geek, so I loved making mine. I've got a nice little colour scale thing to highlight the best interest rates so I can fund those first, and different colours for the ones with standing orders, then each month I make manual deposits after pay day (my pay varies a lot so some months I can pump a lot more into my regular savers) and un-highlight the ones I've paid.

Anyone fancy sharing a link to a blank spreadsheet! I'm a bit daunted and sort of don't know where to start!

clairec666

s71hj said:

clairec666 said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps a spreadsheet of regular savers! I'm a bit of an Excel geek, so I loved making mine. I've got a nice little colour scale thing to highlight the best interest rates so I can fund those first, and different colours for the ones with standing orders, then each month I make manual deposits after pay day (my pay varies a lot so some months I can pump a lot more into my regular savers) and un-highlight the ones I've paid.

Anyone fancy sharing a link to a blank spreadsheet! I'm a bit daunted and sort of don't know where to start!

This is roughly what I've got:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qAg4gDqIIuX9YO7JG7uHY5nggL90aUQMqrhUtn3JHPo/edit?usp=sharing
Obviously I've removed any personal information and have edited the amounts too. Mine is a little more complicated and has linked sheets from separate years.

Natwest and RBS behave a little differently, in that the interest is paid in monthly and compounded. So the formulas in their rows are different. To extend to the next month, highlight the 3 columns for this month and drag across to the next month to auto-fill. At the moment the "min/max deposits" and "maturity date" columns don't do anything in regards to cell formulas, you'll have to work out each month which accounts are maturing.

Note that if you're adding up the "total interest" column for tax purposes, you would have to take into account which year the interest was paid in; monthly totals for last year are missing, so your "total" for each account will usually be higher than the row total.

s71hj

clairec666 said:

s71hj said:

clairec666 said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps a spreadsheet of regular savers! I'm a bit of an Excel geek, so I loved making mine. I've got a nice little colour scale thing to highlight the best interest rates so I can fund those first, and different colours for the ones with standing orders, then each month I make manual deposits after pay day (my pay varies a lot so some months I can pump a lot more into my regular savers) and un-highlight the ones I've paid.

Anyone fancy sharing a link to a blank spreadsheet! I'm a bit daunted and sort of don't know where to start!

This is roughly what I've got:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qAg4gDqIIuX9YO7JG7uHY5nggL90aUQMqrhUtn3JHPo/edit?usp=sharing
Obviously I've removed any personal information and have edited the amounts too. Mine is a little more complicated and has linked sheets from separate years.

Natwest and RBS behave a little differently, in that the interest is paid in monthly and compounded. So the formulas in their rows are different. To extend to the next month, highlight the 3 columns for this month and drag across to the next month to auto-fill. At the moment the "min/max deposits" and "maturity date" columns don't do anything in regards to cell formulas, you'll have to work out each month which accounts are maturing.

Note that if you're adding up the "total interest" column for tax purposes, you would have to take into account which year the interest was paid in; monthly totals for last year are missing, so your "total" for each account will usually be higher than the row total.

Brilliant thank you!

Slinky

clairec666 said:

s71hj said:

clairec666 said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps a spreadsheet of regular savers! I'm a bit of an Excel geek, so I loved making mine. I've got a nice little colour scale thing to highlight the best interest rates so I can fund those first, and different colours for the ones with standing orders, then each month I make manual deposits after pay day (my pay varies a lot so some months I can pump a lot more into my regular savers) and un-highlight the ones I've paid.

Anyone fancy sharing a link to a blank spreadsheet! I'm a bit daunted and sort of don't know where to start!

This is roughly what I've got:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qAg4gDqIIuX9YO7JG7uHY5nggL90aUQMqrhUtn3JHPo/edit?usp=sharing
Obviously I've removed any personal information and have edited the amounts too. Mine is a little more complicated and has linked sheets from separate years.

Natwest and RBS behave a little differently, in that the interest is paid in monthly and compounded. So the formulas in their rows are different. To extend to the next month, highlight the 3 columns for this month and drag across to the next month to auto-fill. At the moment the "min/max deposits" and "maturity date" columns don't do anything in regards to cell formulas, you'll have to work out each month which accounts are maturing.

Note that if you're adding up the "total interest" column for tax purposes, you would have to take into account which year the interest was paid in; monthly totals for last year are missing, so your "total" for each account will usually be higher than the row total.

Interesting (groan, pun not intended!).  Presumably the monthly interest figures are a little approximate since you are dividing the annual interest rate by 12 and not taking account of the number of days in the month.

Bigwheels1111

My FD reg saver matures on the 10/05/25.

I kept the old account it merged into last year as was told it would make the process quicker.

Any bets on how many days it take to payout, Plus let me open a new one ?.

Middle_of_the_Road

Bigwheels1111 said:

My FD reg saver matures on the 10/05/25.

I kept the old account it merged into last year as was told it would make the process quicker.

Any bets on how many days it take to payout, Plus let me open a new one ?.

I would hope same day, and next day.

clairec666

Slinky said:

clairec666 said:

s71hj said:

clairec666 said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps a spreadsheet of regular savers! I'm a bit of an Excel geek, so I loved making mine. I've got a nice little colour scale thing to highlight the best interest rates so I can fund those first, and different colours for the ones with standing orders, then each month I make manual deposits after pay day (my pay varies a lot so some months I can pump a lot more into my regular savers) and un-highlight the ones I've paid.

Anyone fancy sharing a link to a blank spreadsheet! I'm a bit daunted and sort of don't know where to start!

This is roughly what I've got:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qAg4gDqIIuX9YO7JG7uHY5nggL90aUQMqrhUtn3JHPo/edit?usp=sharing
Obviously I've removed any personal information and have edited the amounts too. Mine is a little more complicated and has linked sheets from separate years.

Natwest and RBS behave a little differently, in that the interest is paid in monthly and compounded. So the formulas in their rows are different. To extend to the next month, highlight the 3 columns for this month and drag across to the next month to auto-fill. At the moment the "min/max deposits" and "maturity date" columns don't do anything in regards to cell formulas, you'll have to work out each month which accounts are maturing.

Note that if you're adding up the "total interest" column for tax purposes, you would have to take into account which year the interest was paid in; monthly totals for last year are missing, so your "total" for each account will usually be higher than the row total.

Interesting (groan, pun not intended!).  Presumably the monthly interest figures are a little approximate since you are dividing the annual interest rate by 12 and not taking account of the number of days in the month.

Yes, exactly. It also doesn't take into account which day you paid in.